The Internet has caused explosive growth in the technological and business fields of the economy. By having individuals from around the world linked together in a common communication structure, access to news, pictures, books, music, video, and other multimedia content is readily available. However, this easy access is also creating tension between owners' and users of these multimedia content sources. Several court cases relating to “pirating” of MP3 songs or copies of movies have made headlines. The ease at which the multimedia content can be transferred between locations separated around the globe creates difficulty in enforcing current licensing schemes for using the multimedia content. Most contemporary licensing schemes require a user of the multimedia content to purchase a “bulk license” such that the transaction costs associated with the contractual bargaining in the licensing arraignment are minimized. This bulk licensing technique also has the disadvantage of requiring content creators and owners to join one or more associations of artists, writers, musicians, photographers, or other skilled artisan group to reduce the owner's transaction costs as well. By joining an association, the content provider (a creator or owner) is effectively left out of the marketing of their work. Thus, they are restricted to generally signing standard contracts that base the royalty compensation for their privileged content on the number of submittals to the association and not based on the quality of their work created. Due to the high transactions costs associated with bargaining between a user of the content and the content provider, optimum profit levels for the content provider can not be achieved. Therefore, a transaction payment system is required which allows the content provider and the user to minimize transaction costs, allows the user to get easy access to privileged content, and protects the content provider from piracy of their work.